He’s up again before the echo dies, fuelled by rage and cheap gin. “I’ll sober up,” he slurs, blood already threading his beard. “Then I’ll find you. And your king.”
He spits but the glob never lands.
The club blurs, teeth scatter across the cobbles in a pink mist and the drunk drops hard, jaw hanging crooked. That strike was lightning; I barely tracked the motion. My pulse stutters. He’s smaller than me, leaner, but the speed—Christ, the speed. Up close, he’d be lethal. I file the thought away: when the time comes, I’ll need to keep my distance.
Richard looms over the wreckage, club tip hovering above the ruined mouth.
“You threaten me or the king again,” Richard snarls, voice steady despite the flush in his cheeks, “and I’ll have you dancing at the end of a rope before your mother finishes swallowing the next mistake she made with your father.”
A single bark of laughter escapes the crowd but quickly dies under a hissed curse.
Richard lets the silence stretch, then sweeps his gaze across every face. “Any assault on me, my men, or the Crown will be treated as high treason. Justice will be fast, legal, and final. Am I clear?”
For a moment, there’s only silence.
“Yes, sir. Of course, sir,” one voice pipes up and a low mutter of agreement ripples outward.
Richard gives a curt nod, hooks the club to his belt, adjusts his uniform and hat with deliberate care, then turns and strides back to his constables. The market exhales as he leaves and enters his carriage.
Curiously, I slip through the alleys and tail him. I know it’s a mistake from the first step; we’re barely five blocks from the Tower when the carriage jerks to a halt and Richard leaps down. I’ve been tailing at a brisk clip, ducking into alleys to sprint ahead, using every shortcut I know, and I step out of one just as he turns toward the shop beside me. His eyes snap to mine, flicking to my mask, my hat.
He knows.
I force my gaze forward, striding past without faltering. At the corner I risk a glance back: he’s framed in the doorway, watching me. I round the bend and bolt, pulse hammering. I was trying to hunt him, but he’s already hunting me. And he’s better at it.
I abandon the chase and double back to the stable for Ada.
Half an hour in the saddle brings me within a block of Lord Hale’s shuttered manor. A fat white X of chalk brands the front door I splintered the other night: City Guard seal. I circle, stable Ada at a dingy yard two streets over, and linger with her longer than I should.
She’s twitchy again, her ears flicking as she shies away from my palm and the unease continues to gnaw at me. I run my fingers along her mane and see it: the strands braided with my trophies have become even more ashen, the colour bleeding outward like frost. I frown, unsettled, until that familiar warmth brushes my skin.
Gray.
I ache for his voice, but no blood has been spilt today; the urge is a low ember, banked for now.
The sun slips, and the rainclouds I scented earlier roll in with a distant growl; the storm is coming. I leave Ada, circling wide to the rear wall, and vault it with a running leap. My fingers catch the coping, and I haul myself up, roll over, and drop into a crouch on the far side.
Empty.
Good.
I ghost across the yard, testing the back doors—locked—then climb to a second-floor window. London mud clings to my boots like tar; I scrape what I can, but soon give up, and peel the shoes off entirely, setting them on the sill and slipping inside barefoot, hunting for any thread that might lead back to me.
I trace my own bootprints to the front door—now barricaded inside and out with fresh planks. Continuing up the stairs, I move past the spot where I chased the whore into the night, to the closet I splintered and the floor that drank a nobleman’s life. The blood has dried to a near-black crust.
The air is thick with it. Iron, rot, red.
My head lolls, the same fevered bliss from the other night flooding in, hot and sudden. Scent becomes touch, becomes pulse and heat pools low. My knees buckle and I slap a palm to the wall to stay upright, breath hitching. When I open my eyes, the Lord is waiting.
Jaw unhinged, cheek torn open, skull folded like wet parchment. The charred ruin between his legs still smokes in memory.
A low moan slips out of me as pleasure coils tight, shocking in its speed. I sag against the wall, thighs trembling, chasing the crest.
Tap-tap-tap.
Glass rattles and my eyes fly open. A crow perches on the sill, black eyes fixed on me, beak drumming a frantic warning.
Caw. The sound punches through the haze. A spike of dread slams into me: go, now.
